


Strange Mercies

by TheBitterKitten



Series: In a Cuban Sea [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bickering, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, HannibaLibre, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Idiots in Love, M/M, Murder Husbands, Murder Husbands in Cuba, POV Hannibal Lecter, Petty Hannibal Lecter, Petty Will Graham, Post episode 0313: The Wrath of the Lamb, Sassy Will Graham, Soft Hannibal, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, a misunderstanding, a vow, everyone is petty and everyone’s in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:36:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBitterKitten/pseuds/TheBitterKitten
Summary: Will goes for a swim. Hannibal doesn’t take it well.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: In a Cuban Sea [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975105
Comments: 2
Kudos: 130





	Strange Mercies

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Implied attempted suicide

Will is being recalcitrant and retiring, asis usual. 

“What would you like for dinner, Will?” Hannibal attempts diplomacy after the skirmish earlier, centering himself and adjusting the ties of his apron. They should be better than this, after everything. 

He stands in the kitchen. It’s a respectful distance away from the other man; the dining room lying between the rooms they occupy. Due to the odd acoustics of their current home, Hannibal is still perfectly audible if he projects, especially if he’s facing Will’s direction. As he is now.

“I’ll eat whatever it is you decide to make, as always.”

Will tosses the words out with a distinct lack of care, directed to the ceiling of the living room. Dismissive. Hannibal watches him sharply, but he continues. 

“I was considering  _ropa vieja_. We have ingredients that would suit the dish well and wouldn’t require a trip into town and the market.”

At the mention of  town, and the driving it would take to get there, Hannibal sees a predictable tension seize hold in the man lying sprawled on the sofa. He does not deny himself the satisfaction the response creates.

“Like I said, make whatever it is you want tomake this time. I’ll eat it.”

Hannibal doesn’t reply just yet, closing his eyes, willing himself into a less impulsive state. 

All he’s asking is what would be mutually palatable to them both. He’s offering a choice; participation and a modicum of connection, but Will is being deliberately difficult and obtuse. He’s quite closed to Hannibal. 

It doesn’t agree by any stretch with the sweat that gathers and itches obnoxiously at the nape of his neck, under his arms, at his back, at his groin. The way his clothes cling to his skin and lay imperfectly. Hannibal hasn’t yet adjusted to Cuba’s enveloping, damp sort of heat; its palpable and cloying presence. It irks him.

He takes a breath, tries to stave off another altercation.

“Fine. Dinner will be ready at seven.”

Silence. Will doesn’t even acknowledge him. 

Hannibal identifies and catalogues the feeling seething in his gut as resentment. It is altogether foreign, but swiftly becoming much too familiar in his interactions with Will. Usually people are dead from the first offense, not allowed the chance to continually  _disappoint_ him with their behavior. Hannibal places his hands flat on the counter, consciously releases the knife he’d been holding. The onion sits before him on the cutting board, unscathed. 

“I’m going to bathe. Perhaps when I’ve returned, we’ll both be in more amenable moods,” he says to the general direction of the the living room. Will is stretched out acrossthe sofa; arm thrown over his face. A book rests open and face-down against his chest. One knee is canted up and the other foot is dangling off the edge of the seat. The meat of his tanned thigh peeks out from where the fabric has drooped and bunched at the crotch of his shorts. Will doesn’t seem to mind that he’s sweating. Rather, he looks completely and enviably at ease. 

Hannibal stalks away to the bath before Will —if he would ever even look at him— can see his scowl.

The shower is an oasis. The water falling from the head drenches him and drives away the salt-acrid scent of his sweat. He draws a cloth soaped thick with ylangylang and tomato leaf-scented body wash across his limbs, indulges himself in the ritual of bathing. It feels near enough to prayer. Deliberate movements acknowledge each part of his body, cleanse every inch. Make still and polish the tuning fork with which he resonates the present moment and larger world. 

He may indeed miss bathing with Will, that habit turned natural and necessary after the fall. But he bathed alone before him, and he’ll do so now. 

And he’ll take as much pleasure in it as he chooses, regardless of Will’s intended punishment.

He rinses, shuts the water off, and steps out to wrap himself in a towel. He dresses precisely in the airiest linen suit he owns. He leaves off the tie, pocket square, and waistcoat, lays them out on his bed to wear for dinner.Folds his shirtsleeves to his elbows in anticipation of work in the kitchen. He combs his hair, carefully smoothing pomade into the wet strands. He takes stock of himself, is satisfied, and returns to the main rooms. He stands in front of the sofa to watch the man lying motionless atop it. 

Will is unmoved but for his knee falling farther open. He is terribly sweaty, and Hannibal spares a thought for the book on his chest, Hannibal’s anthology of poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

“You’ll feel better if you take a bath,” Hannibal offers. It’s genuine, at least. Perhaps if they’re both as settled as Hannibal is feeling now, they can move past sniping at each other with every word. 

“I was thinking we should go down to the beach, but you just showered instead,” is the barbed reply. 

Will still won’t meet his eyes. He hasn’t once in the past two days, and it annoys Hannibal more than sweat plastering hair to his forehead or a loose thread in a buttonhole. Worries Hannibal rather deeply, actually. Eye contact is more intimate than nakedness for Will, at least in regard to himself. He very much dislikes being denied their intimacy. Especially since Will has denied Hannibal all other touch for weeks now over a perceived slight. 

So much for that, then. Hannibal considers a few quite satisfying replies, ones that would  make Will look at him. Touch him, even with a fist. Or perhaps those capable, long fingers wrapped around his throat.

But he rather wants to move past whatever this stalemate is between them, and that would accomplish the opposite. Will is intent on having his way in this particular instance, no matter the inconvenience or absurdity of his choice, what with dinner still waiting to be made. So Hannibal concedes. 

“We can go down to the beach if you want, Will,” he says. He’s holding out yet another olive branch, daring Will to cast this one aside with no consequences.

Will meets his gaze without warning, sending a frisson of heat down into Hannibal’s gut. The challenge plain in his eyes is not unlike Will’s proclamation that once, they existed a million light-years away from friendship. Unease shivers across Hannibal’s nerves, and he squares himself instinctively for a fight. 

“Let’s.”

He watches Will shut the book and close his legs, swing them down, rise and stand. He follows Will down the short hallway, each going to their separate bedrooms to change. 

He meets Will near the front door, towel wrapped around his hips like an apron, mind on the dinner yet waiting. They walk in tense silence down to their stretch of deserted beach. Will hasn’t looked at him, fingers twitching by his side around the towel draped over his arm. As soon as they reach their usual spot, he lays it out near to where Hannibal is arranging his own. He moves off to wade into the sea without offering an invitation to follow. 

Hannibal permits himself an exasperated sigh. 

There’s vanishingly little point to him being here, if Will is only planning to make Hannibal watch him swim. Flaunt himself as unattainable to a man well-used to attaining. He considers heading back inside the house, but whatever Will wants to prove to them both, Hannibal is curious enough to stay to see. He lounges against his towel in the sand, propped up on his elbows. 

And it is a pleasure to watch Will swim.Lithe shoulders, broad for his frame, work hard against the waves near the shore. Legs corded with dense, packed muscle churn on the surface of water, flash bright in the setted sun as he gradually shrinks away. A potent force leaching its strength into the surrounding water. 

Hannibal is reminded of what he remembers from the fall and its aftermath. Standing there on the cliff. Basking in the concupiscence of victory over their still-warm conquest. Feeling Will come to rest against him as if he were home, which is right and true. The unexpected tilt of their bodies over the edge of the cliff, the pull of Will’s arm against his neck. A detached acceptance helping push them off to fall clear of the rocks. Clutching Will as closely as he can in their last moments. The embrace that will have to suffice for everything. A long breath with their bloody scent thick in his nostrils; them together, one. 

A void.

His back flat against cold, unyielding rock. Will’s face warm against his; blurred above his. Will’s eyes a blind and dimming fire, before the other man slips to the side and out of view. They are alive, and landed. Will got them this far, but no farther.

Hannibal comes awake by pieces. The roaring pit of his pain swallows him whole before he gains control of himself.

He’s cold. The kind of cold that is violent, rejects breath and life but utterly. It burns in him, in the marrow of his bones. 

But Hannibal has felt this before. Survived this, before. He throws open a certain decayed and rusted door in the section of his mind where the floors have holes and gives in. Lets memory and instinct conduct his limbs. He is flooded with a serene, potent calm which pays no heed to pain, or cold, or anything but purpose. He walks with halting, weighted steps. Heavy flesh in his arms that may be dead for how limp and still it is. Drives and drives and drives, drives until they are somewhere deemed safe for the moment.

Hannibal blinks. 

He’s in Cuba, alive. Well. The simmering heat around him fills him with life. 

Will is swimming; faint against the dim horizon gloaming in the evening. 

Will is too far out. 

Hannibal rises to his feet all at once, calls as loud as he can to the remote figure far past the waves approaching shore. Well out into open sea. 

The terrible clarity of Will’s intention strikes Hannibal to his quick, as lightning engulfs a lone tree.

Will means to leave him this way. 

Will is in the process of dying.

Will had been saying goodbye these last weeks. Withdrawing, not meeting his gaze for fear of perception. Pushing him away.Will had been planning to separate one into two and now is drowning the one as he thinks should have happened after the fall.The same way Abigail was doomed to die in a kitchen, Will is taking leave of Hannibal in the ocean. He’s abandoning him while Hannibal is forced to watch him swim into the siren call of the sea, witness him succumb somewhere soon in open water. Hannibal would appreciate the thoughtful design, if it wasn’t, at this moment, destroying him.

Hannibal has never felt this helpless, ever. Before, the horror had already been done. He had no choice, only addressed the aftermath. Now, seconds are pure piercing agony as they slide toward the inevitable end and he can’t stop them. He has no power to stop this from happening.Hannibal shouts the other’s name. Screams it. He waves, both arms above his head, cannot bear this moment. Cannot survive however long it takes his other to drown, is already wading into the surf to follow him down.

But Will is waving an arm in response. Has turned, is swimming back. His dark curls are barely visible in the black sea, his limbs flashing with the last dying light.

Will is too far out. 

Hannibal cannot seem to make his limbs move. He is rooted to this spot, feet sinking into the sand beneath him as the waves beckon him into their arms, as he waits, waits for his heart to return to him. Will is a small, nearly intangible thing somewhere in the crashing waves. Hannibal loses sight of him once, twice, a third time, for too long. He falters each time, weak where he stands; would sink to his knees and drown. Each time, Will reappears but closer: still coming back. Hannibal stands breathless, as the man in the ocean grows larger, and the noise in his ears drowns out the rush of the waves. Will is so close now, just an arm’s-length away, and Hannibal moves without thinking to clutch at him. He’s cold. 

“Why were you leaving me? You mustn’t. You can’t leave and expect me to survive it. I would follow you. I’ll follow you whatever way you go.” Words tumble from his mouth, and Hannibal doesn’t stop them. Can’t. He sets the man upright, but Will sinks down into the water and sand. Hannibal gathers him in tight against his chest, cradling him. He feels his other shaking hard, his movements jostling Hannibal. The faint, fluttering rise of Will’s chest heaving shallow sucking gasps; the rabbit-fast, unsteady pulse of his heart.

Will is limp in his arms, coughs up seawater, eyes rolled back with exhaustion. He’s given all he has to get back. Hannibal lifts him then. He carries him out of the surf, trying not to think of the last time. He shushes Will, encourages him to match his breathing with Hannibal’s, presses him more closely against himself as he walks heavily towards the house. 

Hannibal is of two minds. One is precise, clinically noting Will’s symptoms and planning the clear and easy course of action to remedy them. The other is still screaming.

They’re inside, and Hannibal lays Will gently down on the leather of the sofa; does not spare a thought for the water stains to come. He kneels before the sofa, ignoring the water, salt and sand streaming from his legs onto the parquet floor. He cannot stop himself from stroking the side of Will’s face; the side with the regretted scar in his forehead and the long line of scar on his cheek, beloved for the moment it represents. 

Will is rousing. His eyes are less glazed and beginning to focus. The man’s piercing gaze falls on him, and there is a softness in it that would break Hannibal. 

He tears himself away by force of his will, walks to the kitchen. He’s still talking; has been all this time, he realises. 

“You’re dehydrated, and suffering from hypoglycemia and exhaustion. I’m preparing something rather basic which I’ll hope you’ll forgive in the future, but in this particular moment will be good for you.”

He cuts a thick slice of bread from the loaf they made the other day. Melts butter in a pan (they own no microwave). Once it’s warmed, he drizzles it over the bread. He mixes too much sugar with cinnamon and vanilla bean paste, coats the bread with it. It’s an approximation of a dish a university roommate would make for him on particularly dark nights; a dish that Mischa would have loved. He plates it, fills a glass with water, and hands them both to Will. He returns the raised eyebrows, findsheart in the effort it takes to form an expression in Will’s state.

Will eats it all. He drains the glass of water, and the next three Hannibal fills for him. Will is silent.

Hannibal is pushing his luck by touching Will. He carries him bodily to the bath, but somehow Will allows it, allows even the arm Hannibal tosses over his shoulder to better distribute his surprisingly dense weight. Hannibal would be pleased at this, but Will had intended to abandon him. That is a bottomless chasm not easily overcome.

He sets Will down, propping him on the wide edge of the eight-foot porcelain tub, confident Will is steady enough to support himself. Hannibal busies his hands with preparing the bath. He is not stingy with Epsom salts, lavender, or almond oil, adds tuberose essence. Will watches him almost unblinkingly while Hannibal draws the bath. Hannibal does not meet his gaze. 

When the bath is drawn, Will stumbles to his feet. Sways as if he’s drunk. He drags down his swim shorts and kicks them off his ankle. Privacy was lost in their fall; traded for casual physical intimacy, and Will collapses naked into the bath with an abrupt, deep moan of pure pleasure. Hannibal does not acknowledge it. 

“How are you feeling, Will?” is all he allows. Any more would be dangerous to this tenuous peace between them. 

“I can see us more clearly now,” Will replies. “Join me... Please?”

This makes no sense, and Hannibal considers the angles Will could be playing. Their eyes meet, but Will is calm, no challenge there, just inviting. 

“You’ll feel better if you take a bath,” he says.

He looks up through his lashes, brow lifting teasingly, holding out the olive branch. 

Hannibal is curious enough to accept it. He strips down and lifts his legs carefully over the rim of the tubto settle in to the heat, facing Will. He’s still coming to terms with thepossibility of losing Will; contemplating his narrow escape from that immeasurable loss. He is distracted by Will allowing his legs to rest against Hannibal’s side. It’s the first time Will has consciously touched him since the fight. It’s such a little thing, but Hannibal feels one single thread in the rope of his self-control snap with the effort it takes not to gather Will into his arms this instant. He keeps his hands folded on his lap.

“If I had known the prospect of  _ropa vieja_ again would make you walk into the sea, I’d have made something else,” Hannibal says. It'slight, but not a joke.

Will’s face does a strange thing, and he offers quickly, “It… wasn’t that, what you’re thinking. What it looked like, I guess. I wasn’t trying to- to leave. I hadn’t meant to go that far out. I just got lost in my head,” he says. He’s earnest and open. Hannibal wants to believe him.

The relief washing over Hannibal is a tangible, solid thing, and his shoulders sag with its blessed weight. The teeth preemptively gnawing inside of his chest— the grief marking just precisely how hollow he would be— quiet themselves. He would feel silly for jumping to conclusions, but the elation is too big and leaves no room for it. He can suddenly breathe again. 

“What did you get lost in?” Hannibal can make a guess, but he wants to know. 

That night. After we fell.” 

Hannibal nods, feeling the righteousness and strength of their connection. Will takes a deep breath. He looks down.

“You and I, Hannibal, are so intricately meshed that separation would kill us both. And yet, we are distinct enough that we are at each other’s mercy. There’s just enough doubt between us to… to misread the situation and do something drastic, do something we can’t come back from.I-- threw us over, not because I didn’t want it, but because I couldn’t bear the thought of you stepping away from me on the cliff. Better that we should go over together as we were, and meet… meet death, or meet this new life, but it would be together. It would be us. I chose you permanently, that way. So I’m removing the doubt, Hannibal. I still feel like that. I always will. If you’re planning something to change that... if you don’t want us anymore, so be it. Just save yourself the trouble and kill us both now.” Will meets his gaze steadily, his face open and willing to take whatever Hannibal will give him. His hand rests against Hannibal’s calf, kneading the flesh there. 

Hannibal could not have created such a perfect being if he had been Pygmalion himself. Will exceeds him at every turn, defies creation— any hand in his becoming but his own— and plies his strange mercies according to his own whims. It’s too much; Hannibal didn’t know he was capable of feeling this much. The sheer enormity of the love and awe and fealty that Hannibal feels for Will in this moment stills him, pins him, binds him. He’s flayed. When he manages to speak, it’s a low murmur, barely audible.

“Dear Will,” he breathes, “My clever boy.”

He must touch Will then, feel his warm skin beneath his hand. He closes the small distance between them, threading his thighs between Will’s, caging him with his arm. 

Will pulls him down into a devouring kiss. Hannibal loses all thought but for the sweet crush of their lips and Will’s tongue seeking his for a long, long stretch of time. Will moans high and victorious, a conquering sound, and Hannibal concedes gratefully. Will’s calloused hands go everywhere; possessing, claiming every inch they touch. Hannibal covers the man below him with his mouth and fingers grasping, possessing in return.

A hand glides up his back and sends a visceral shudder straight through him, and he’s lost. The bath isn’t the best place for this, nor is the timing. Hannibal doesn’t care, resettles into a half-kneeling tangle that has them as close as they can get, Will pinned between the back wall of the tub and Hannibal’s thigh.He feels Will wrap those long, capable fingers around him and give a languid stroke of pure and steady friction. The combination of silky water, warm skin and the rough touch of Will’s palm forces a deep, unbidden groan from him, and Hannibal returns the favor.

Will is sighing, grinding and writhing beneath him. Hannibal finds a singular purpose in making Will make those sounds, but louder. Will meets the challenge and everything exists as hot press of hard flesh and shared panted breath until Will stops, pulling slightly away. Hannibal stills, watching him.

“I’m not scrubbing out the tub,” he says, catching his breath.

Hannibal is merry with lust, and smiles.

“You really do worry too much.”

Will laughs, then, and his smile prints itself onto Hannibal’s memory. He relaxes, stretches out where he has drawn into a curve, pushes his hips against Hannibal, shuts his eyes. Will looks fey with those long black lashes against his cheeks; his curls plastered against his brow. He is an errant sea god, tarrying for a little while underneath Hannibal. His face and chest are flushed, splotchy with soft pleasure, and his parted lips have been kissed to a deeply reddened plushness that Hannibal finds no will within himself to resist. 

He rolls his hips, claiming Will’s attention, and Will folds up against him, tightens the fist capturing Hannibal’s girth as he pushes into its heat. His leg tangles around the other’s and drags them closer in. They move now in tandem, in harmony, their nails digging in where they grip flesh. Hannibal already feels a terminal pleasure pooling and coiling deep in his gut. Will must be there too, because he buries his face in the join of Hannibal’s throat; bares and grits his teeth. Hannibal holds him, free hand fisted in his curls. Even with no room to stroke and pull between them, knuckles kneading against soft belly, they see each other over the edge. 

Hannibal tosses his head back, feels his orgasm spiraling, spiraling out, rolling through him in an foamy white obliterating wave. He shakes and drowns, but happily.

Will is mouthing against his chest, their skin tacking together as he shifts against Hannibal. Sends languishing ripples of pleasure to wash through him. He is still, head hung low, lips parted. Hannibal cannot bear this peace, this clarified happiness as he lies sunk against Will. They are sublime; sacred and divine. He breathes deeply, memorizing their scent. He would bring Will closer, bury his nose in his curls, but that would require movement and breaking this moment. 

Will leans in to his throat, and Hannibal feels the cool rush of his inhale. He blinks, sits back slightly to meet his gaze. He could say a lot of things, but Will offers him a smile and a lift of his eyebrows. He’s mirroring Hannibal with that curious empathy of his, letting himself do so. Hannibal is struck again with an overwhelming pulse of affection. He settles for purring, “The water will get cold in a minute.”

“So take me to bed.”


End file.
